Allie’s Answers

Do you know someone who has a lip balm addiction? Do you have one?

For the longest time, I couldn’t go anywhere without a little tub of a certain brand of medicated lip balm. Some people say that lip balm addiction doesn’t exist. Other people make crazy claims that some brands contain fiberglass to irritate your lips so you use more and start a viscous cycle. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

In an AP article last year, Dr. Monte Meltzer, the Chief of Dermatology at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, said that chemicals that cause lip tingling like phenol, menthol and salicylic acid can cause peeling. Peeling thins the skin on your lips and they can’t hold moisture as well. Lip balm addiction doesn’t break up families or drive people into debt, but you might want to use a balm that doesn’t contain those ingredients.

My lip balm addiction ended when I switched to Badger Lip Balm Sticks. The ingredients are simple: Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Beeswax, Castor Oil, Extracts of Aloe Vera, Rose Hip & Sea Buckthorn Berry, and Pure Essential Oils.

Badger doesn’t test on animals, donates 10% of their profits to charity, and does a lot of other cool things to limit their environmental impact.

I love the Chai Rose Lip Balm Stick. It has an earthy, incense scent. It’s flavorless, so it doesn’t encourage lip licking (another drying factor), there’s no tingling, and it lasts a long time. I love it, but I’m not addicted.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Beauty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.